Once Again
by Phthia
Summary: Upon his death, Erik finds himself back at the beginning. And that sometimes, good things come to those who wait. Written as part of a-partofthenarrative's 13 Nights of POTO Halloween writing challenge on tumblr. Lyrics from 'The Poet and the Pendulum' by Nightwish.


_I'm sorry, Erik. I cannot keep my promise. Raoul says I cannot move forward if I look back even once._

Point. She'd had one. Though I'd been unable to see it then, mired deep in the blackest depths of despair. Rage and pain had blinded me that in my desperation to hold onto the one thing I'd ever known in my life to be good, that I had simultaneously drive her away. I did that. Whether it was my face or my temper, she never told me. I'll never know.

But, dear Christine, there was no going forward for me. My love for you was the only earthly tie I kept to this world. Music, as you know, is utterly its own state of being, its own plane of existence. If I might live and breathe melodies, keys and pitch, be rest-assured that I would have eschewed love just as I had any hope of forging bonds of family or friendship.

When you left me that night, the exquisite gown I'd fashioned for you streaked with grime and torn, golden hair in hanks about your reddened face, you had never looked more beautiful to me. And you took what was left of my heart with you.

There was only the sweet chase of the dragon and the sweet, eternal oblivion that beckoned at its end.

* * *

The morphine did its job. But when I opened my eyes again, it was neither to the nothingness I'd both expected and hoped for nor the annoyed face of the daroga as I'd dreaded. God had ceased to exist in my mind when Père Mansart told me that a supposedly benevolent being did not welcome the souls of animals who'd lived their whole lives in innocence and loyalty into Heaven. If any creature had deserved such peace, it was Sasha.

However. I briefly reconsidered that He might have had at least a foul sense of irony where I was concerned when I found myself before the cold stone walls of my childhood home. The ivy had turned brown and yellow, cloying against the walls like a parasite. Once it had been a curtain of green that waved in the wind like a dune of leaves.

Rage consumed me, and where there'd previously been no wind at all to stir the dead leaves, a great gust of a gale tore many shriveled brown bits from the side of the house, exposing the peeling robin's egg blue paint beneath.

Why? WhywhywhywhyWHY**WHY**?! Of all the places I could possibly return to, why here?

I could feel a great weight bear down upon me, as though the house itself had brought forth a great ball and chain and fastened it about my ankle. When I turned in disgust and made to leave through the gate, my entire being instead folded in upon itself, colliding with an unseen force. Like a mountain of rubble in one of the tunnels I'd once rigged to collapse beneath the Garnier.

Panic joined the rage as the fact that I was trapped here became apparent. For now. I would never abide an eternity in this tomb, the monument to my mother's narcissism and cruelty. I'd managed to escape from Persia with my head – I'd escape this purgatory, too. Somehow, Some way. I'd been neglected and abused here, but always kept in blissful ignorance until my mother dragged me before that mirror.

The first thing I did upon entering that house was to shatter every last mirror. If Madeleine's spirit was lurking in her parlor, she would never again be able to primp and preen and pretend as though she'd never birthed a monster.

* * *

One week. One month. One year. One century. Time ceased to have any meaning. I might have been there an hour, or a decade. Still, some part of me recognized that outside the perpetual stillness of the house, the world marched on and as the landscape and scenery both changed outside the window, I could recognize time's pitiless wear upon the countryside. The village had grown. Fields were being torn up and new homes were being built.

Perhaps this wasn't purgatory at all; this was hell. Once more to be surrounded by people and yet condemned to be utterly alone despite that fact. I'd been used to it, once. Before her. Christine had taught me to hope without even realizing she'd done it.

Her absence sent the despair I'd always dwelt with plummeting to new depths.

* * *

Squatters came. Squatters swiftly _went_. I learned how to make the lights flicker, and the doorknobs to rattle. Sometimes I'd pace so much in my old bedroom in the little attic upstairs that they'd claim to hear my footfalls. So then the irony became complete: I truly was a Phantom. If it was within my childhood home, the worst prison I could possibly imagine, so be it.

Because I'd given thoughts and plans of escape years' worth of thought. I'd never have been able to leave Persia without help. Grudgingly given and even more grudgingly accepted. Would it not stand to reason that all attempts to scale the wall, to shatter it, to phase through it would end much as the first had? It did.

One of these squatters _would_ become my unwitting host. If I could figure out the mechanics of possession, that was. The next person who attempted to squat here would become my proverbial rat in a cage. They would be at my mercy until I learned the how of taking on a body that wasn't mine. A body that would finally let me look like everyone else. If only for a few minutes.

That promise was easy to make. Harder to keep when _she_ walked through the door.

* * *

There was something _off_ about that house the moment I passed through the gate. The listing on the Airbnb site had clearly been photoshopped, I could see now. My lips pressed into a thin line of displeasure to note that the grounds were a twisted thicket of weeds and overgrown perennials that surely once, if you squinted must have been an English garden. A lovely one, too. Shame. Dad would have loved the challenge of cutting it back and coaxing some order back into the yard.

Would have, if he weren't dead. One year, six months and thirty-two days without him, and it still felt as if I were perpetually walking in a bad dream. I mean, I was already doing that even before the first lump appeared. Before the chemo, the drugs we couldn't afford, the debt. The shrill, deadpan _beeeeeep_ of him flatlining as the light died in his eyes.

Ever since I could remember, I'd dreamed of France. Of dancing with girls with curled bangs and the Degas getup. Of singing in front of a throng of people in Victorian finery. I could even feel the heat of the gas lamps that lit the stage in those days before the theater was retrofitted to be compatible with electricity. Always, always, always, those dreams came with a pervasive sense of wrongness. Of pain, guilt. Regret.

A psychic I saw once at a carnival told me that I had my feet planted in two worlds. I can only assume she meant the past and the present. I didn't have the extra fifty dollars on me at the time that would've gotten her to elaborate. Back then I'd chalked it up to her being a greedy quack. But to this day, what she said made sense.

That feeling came rushing back as I eyed the house warily, including the light flickering in the attic window.

My heart thudded hard against my ribs, and I huffed a breath that was more a puff of smoke in the still, misty air. The place might be a dump. But I'd already paid. No sense in wasting money I didn't have because it didn't look fancy. I didn't need fancy. I needed to disappear from the world and forget that I had nothing left. No one.

With that last sobering thought in mind, I pushed the door open and winced when it creaked ominously. The owner hadn't kept up with repairs. I wondered, for a minute if they'd be willing to let me try my hand at it. Anything to keep me away from the empty house my father and I used to live in together.

* * *

_She's here._ **Christine**. _Why? How?_ Rage was still what came easiest to me, and there I settled. Convinced that the daroga had left behind directions to find this place. To find me. Did the old booby know that I was here all this time? Did he die and pass on that knowledge? Christine was alone, without the boy in tow.

Strange. But no matter. My ire spiked and a gust of wind tore through the house. So strong, in fact, that the curtains were torn from their rods and the glass panes the squatters had repaired rattled near to the point of shattering. She yelped in fear, and a beastly smile twisted my face more than it already was. A raucous laugh escaped my lips.

And then I froze. So did she. None of the others who came before had **seen**. Blessedly so. She did.

Her eyes were wide. Eyes which had once been cornflower blue and were now more a sea-green. A minute detail, but it set off a realization in me that yes, time indeed had passed by. This could not be the Christine I knew. There was no recognition in those eyes. Her golden hair was still tousled as it'd been the last time I'd seen her, her dress cleaner and shabbier but still streaked with a little dirt.

Had she had her one love and lifetime, then, and come back here to gloat? No. No, could she have, if she didn't recognize me?

I hovered there for a long moment, and then let out a piercing wail of anguish. The lights went out. I made my escape – back upstairs.

* * *

For a split-second, I wasn't alone. For a split-second, I was home. Weird, when anyone else who'd watched half the amount of horror movies I had would be running away from this place and not looking back. I'd never seen that face before. I could be certain of it. People who ran around in masks at any time other than Halloween were either criminals… or burn victims, is what my thoughts leapt to. Veterans. But I'd never met any of the above.

Until today. Part of me, deep down, seemed to scream out loud that yes, I did know that face. With the mask on, and with the mask off. That dark smudge of a figure that had looked at me as if I were the ghost here had been surprised. And God help me, my curiosity was engaged. I ran **up**, instead of _away_, remembering the lonely light I'd seen in the attic window.

I took the stairs two at a time, the wood splintering and creaking badly beneath my feet, and, panting, pushed open the door to find a dark burst of wind whirl toward me. There you are. Breathless, I took in the sight of the figure, squinting. My glasses were in my bag and I'd dropped that downstairs. So I moved forward, and as the image of a man in immaculate Victorian evening wear grew clearer, pieces that'd been missing were placed back haphazardly in my heart.

They fit, but not conventionally. One foot in the past. One in the present. Those dreams… _were they?_

_Christine._

My name, more a sigh than a whisper. The hair upon the nape of my neck stood on end, and I straightened. His eyes were gold. Deep-set, but gold. Something about them was familiar, and without realizing why, I smiled.

"_You have such oceans within_

_In the end I will always love you._"

The words weren't mine. Or hers. Or mine. They were lyrics from a good song by a good band. And they fit. Just like he did, in these strange memory-dreams. A name came to mind, and my smile died, sorrow filling me inexplicably. In my heart, I knew. This was someone I'd loved. And lost. And hurt. Who had hurt me, too.

"Hello again, Erik."

Maybe it wasn't too late to start again.


End file.
